✍️ Our 3️⃣ points as lacklustre Arsenal held to draw by Palace | OneFootball

Arsenal were left frustrated by a stubborn Crystal Palace side as they were held to a goalless draw at the Emirates.

The Gunners remain in 11th place in the table but did welcome Thomas Partey back from injury after he came off the bench in the second half.

Here our main takeaways from the Emirates …

The bogey team strikes again

Arsenal have not beaten Crystal Palace since Arséne Wenger was in charge of the club.

This draw means it is now the Gunners have now gone five games without a win against the Eagles and they must be sick of the sight of Roy Hodgson.

Has there ever been a better definition of a man having a club’s number more than Hodgson has over Arsenal?

The game played out exactly as Hodgson had planned. Palace set up with a low-block and the hosts struggled to get in any space behind the defence throughout the 90 minutes despite having nearly 70% of the ball possession.

In fact Crystal Palace will come out of the game somewhat disappointed that haven’t left with all three points.

James Tomkins’ effort hit the bar and was followed by Christian Benteke’s looping header which produced a stunning save by Bernd Leno in the only real openings of the match.

Mikel Arteta’s side have improved in recent weeks and went into this game on the back of four straight wins but this was a reminder of how far they still have to come.

Eberechi makes it look Eze

Eberechi Eze has been attracting some of the wrong kind of attention this week – but he reminded everyone of his footballing talents in north London this evening.

The 22-year-old is a joy to watch on the football pitch – the ability he has to glide past a marker is similar to that of Aston Villa’s Jack Grealish and that was on show in abundance.

Eze was particuarly prominent in the first half – completing four dribbles and producing three key passes that led to openings as Héctor Bellerín struggled to decide whether to get tight or stand off his man.

Wilfried Zaha has been crying out for service for years and it now looks as if he has a teammate on his same wavelength.

Crystal Palace pulled off a steal when they signed the midfielder for around £19.5m in the summer – you have to wonder they’ll be able to keep hold of him at Selhurst Park.

Arsenal in Tiers without Kieran

Kieran Tierney was rested as a precaution for tonight’s game due to suffering from a slight muscle tightness, the club stated pre-match.

Ainsley Maitland-Niles was tasked with replacing the Scot on the left of Arsenal’s back four, and well, he had quite the night …

Tierney has played his part in the Gunners’ improvement in recent weeks and it was evident that they missed his ability to overlap the left inside-forward as well as offering solidity at the back against the Eagles tonight.

Maitland-Niles is a talented footballer and has put in a number of good performances at right wing-back in a back five but could not reproduce that on the other side this evening.

The 23-year-old did not seem to trust his left foot to put a cross into the box and on every occasion he cut inside he turned into trouble or gave the ball away.

Arsenal’s upturn in recent weeks has come as a result of all the cogs in the machine working in harmony – one of the pieces was missing tonight and the whole team appeared out of sync.